Pizza & Beer (Day 216)

by The Philosophical Fish

When you travel 300km round trip for a lunch of a Greek pizza and a craft beer……it’s not really about the pizza or the beer….

It’s about the ride.

I ride with a good camera, and I see so many things to take really awesome photos of.

The bunny.

The old barn.

The cool metal objects in Bellingham’s waterfront bike park.

The guys packing up their parachutes in the field at the bottom of Chuckanut Drive.

The weird squarish metal roof-thing that’s been sitting in the field on the way into Edison for as long as I can remember.

The beautiful tree lined road along Chuckanut Drive.

The hordes of people at …whatever that community event in Birch Bay was that looked like hundreds of people trying to dig up every clam in the entire bay at low tide was.

But…to do that would mean stopping and interrupting the ride. And it’s not every day that you get to ride the length of Chuckanut without a car ahead of you….because the two that were both pulled off to let the bikes have fun on the twisty road (Thank you kind drivers!! You are clearly American, because American drivers seem to have a respect for the joy of riding a motorcycle and do their best to let riders have their fun….while Canadian drivers…..we will just leave it there).

The only place we really stopped, other than Terramar for lunch, in Edison, was Birch Bay State Park. It’s a good early-mid’ish stopping point on the way down, and a good late-mid’ish stopping point on the way home. A nice spot to stop, take off the helmets, and have a stretch and a drink of water.

And, as we sat in the shade, a family passed by. The older woman trailing behind stopped by the bikes, smiled at us, and said “Those look like fun….I’ve always wanted to learn to ride…my 80th birthday isn’t too far off and I’m thinking of going for it…haven’t as much to lose anymore“.

Seemed a bit fatalistic, and she certainly hadn’t struck either of us as someone who;d have said that, but we told her that they definitely ARE fun and that we hope she takes it up!

Other than one driver in a white Kia SUV making a serious attempt to wipe me off the road in Cloverdale, by changing lanes behind Kirk and pretty much onto me….if I’d not been on my toes I’d have had my front end hit and gone down… Not sure if that driver was intending to split us or was just an idiot who didn’t realize his head could turn to look before changing lanes abruptly…but beyond that…no serious attempts on either of our lives…just a few minor ones that feel pretty normal for riding in the lower mainland. And, as pretty much is always the case, the absolute worst drivers were the ones on the Canadian side of the border and sporting BC plates.

No circle tour today…down and back. What with Chuckanut giving us such a fun tide down, we opted to turn around and double back the same way.

No artistic shot today. But that’s just what kind of day it was

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